


Scenes from a Cross-Country Road Trip

by WizardGlick



Category: Welcome to Hell - All Media Types
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Canon-Typical Behavior, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Requited Love, Road Trips, Vignette, fuck you ghost adventures seriously fuck you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:19:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25276051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WizardGlick/pseuds/WizardGlick
Summary: It's been three years since Sock was assigned to haunt Jonathan Combs. It's hard to devote that much time to someone and not fall in love with them.Jonathan, fresh out of his first year at college, decides to spend his summer taking a road trip across the U.S. As for his being in love with Sock? He doesn't want to talk about it.
Relationships: Jonathan Combs/Napoleon Maxwell Sowachowski | Sock
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37





	Scenes from a Cross-Country Road Trip

**Author's Note:**

> This is?? Actually???? My first W2H fanfic??? That's scary and exciting!!  
> For the sake of math, I decided that Jonathan was 15 and Sock was 17 during the events of Welcome to Hell. This fic takes place 3 years post-canon, so Jonathan is 18 and Sock is. still 17.
> 
> Content warnings: Canon typical references to suicide and religious themes, but nothing Big Scary. Mentions of underage drinking, but again, nothing extreme.

“Okay, get ready. Next set of headlights you see, aim straight at them, then floor it.” Sock, though he would never admit it, had long since given up actually trying to get Jonathan to kill himself. At this point, he was just going through the motions.

“Idiot," Jonathan said evenly.

“Isn’t it perfect?" Sock gestured at the windshield. "Summer night, full moon, music blasting. Then bam.”

“‘Then bam?’” Jonathan reached for the volume knob, his fingers hovering just millimeters away from the hard plastic before he put his hand back on the wheel with a sigh. “Not, like, 20 minutes moaning in agony while I wait for the life to drain from my body?”

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you that story,” Sock grumbled. He crossed his arms over his chest right where they should have intersected the seatbelt, had he been able to wear one. “Are we there yet?”

“There is no ‘there yet’.”

Scenery flew by in the dark, gone too fast for either of them to process as anything other than meaningless shapes, vague hints that they weren't alone in the world.

“I can’t believe  _ this _ is what you’re doing with your summer,” Sock complained. “Wouldn’t you rather, I dunno, go to a water park or something?”

“Hey, we didn’t all stop aging when we were in  _ high school _ .”

“Your bangs would beg to differ," Sock shot back.

“Road trips are fun.”

“Uh, when you have friends.”

Jonathan gave Sock a sideways look under his bleached bangs, which he truly hadn't changed since high school. “I thought you were my friend.”

A moment’s silence.

In the past, they had tried to parse the details of their relationship, about what it meant that there was no happy ending for the two of them. There was no real solution, so eventually Jonathan simply refused to talk about, icing out Sock's every attempt to bring it up.

Regardless, the tension was still there. Ignoring it didn't make it go away, and it frequently butted into their conversation, manifesting as faux-casual declarations of affection

sock did not engage, even though Jonathan's words made his chest ache with longing. “A real friend would let me have the aux cord.”

“Okay, take it.” Holding the steering wheel in place with his knee, Jonathan unplugged his phone and dropped the cord in Sock’s lap, smirking when it fell through and hit the seat.

"Hey!" Sock said, placing a hand on his chest. “You’re a jerk.”

Jonathan plugged his phone back in. The music resumed and mingled with his quiet laughter as his tires ate up miles of midwest highway.

“You’re drifting into the other lane,” Sock observed, wide-eyed.

“Oops.” Jonathan nudged the steering wheel, then sat back and cracked his neck without taking his eyes off the road. “Can you grab me a Red Bull?”

Sock actually turned and reached for the cooler in the backseat before he realized their mistake. “Uh, no.”

“Oh, right.” Jonathan smiled a big, goofy, exhausted grin. “Guess it’s time to stop for the night.” He pulled over on the shoulder, coasted to a stop alongside a long, flat stretch of countryside, and leaned his seat back.

“Are you allowed to park here?” Sock asked. The absence of Jonathan’s music created a silence that was much louder than any sound ever could be. “Aren’t you worried someone might pull off and hit you?”

Jonathan shrugged and pulled his black hoodie over his head. It was still stiff and new. In the darkness, Sock could just barely make out the green bobcat logo on the front. "Does it count as suicide if I get my dumb ass killed on accident?” He stifled a yawn behind his hand.

“You’re so cute,” Sock blurted out before he could stop himself.

To his equal relief and frustration, Jonathan laughed this off. They had, after all, given up on addressing the implications of their feelings for each other. Whatever those even were. "Flattery will get you nowhere," Jonathan said. He put his hood up and lay back in the reclined seat. "Will you be here when I wake up?"

“Yeah, I will," Sock promised.

“Cool. Wake me up if coyotes surround the car and try to eat me.”

Jonathan rolled over onto his side, leaving Sock alone with the moon and the stars and the silence.

\--

  
  


At Sock's behest, Jonathan stopped at a motel the following night. Hazy from caffeine crash, he very nearly asked for a room with two beds before he caught himself.

“How long until you consistently remember I'm incorporeal?” Sock asked while Jonathan dug around for his credit card. Jonathan kept his mouth shut, but he made a face at Sock, rolling his eyes and sticking out his tongue. The front desk clerk politely pretended not to notice.

“Second floor, huh?” Sock said, gleefully watching Jonathan haul his cooler and his duffel bag up the stairs. “That looks heavy.”

“It’s not… so bad…” Jonathan panted. His cheeks were red and his forehead shone with sweat.

“You know, you could always ditch that unwieldy meat suit and join me in the land of the dead!” Sock grinned and spread his arms.

“Is that a pitch? It literally sounds like you’re quoting an infomercial." Jonathan reached the second floor landing but paused outside his door, observing the architecture of the motel with a thoughtful frown. The motel was split into two buildings: a one-story office running parallel to the two-story building with all the rooms. From where he stood, Jonathan could swing his leg over the railing and step directly onto the office roof.

“It’s no good,” Sock said, materializing over his shoulder. “You’d be lucky to even break your ankle falling from this height.”

Jonathan shook his head and went into his room. “I wasn’t thinking about killing myself.” He set his duffel bag at the foot of the bed and scooted the cooler underneath the unstable desk that stood by the door.

“You should be!” Sock said, more for the sake of hearing his own voice than anything else.

“Sure," Jonathan said, irritated. The setting sun cast blinding beams of orange light into the tiny room. He shut the blinds and flopped down on the bed. "Let’s watch TV.”

Sock settled onto the bed, his ghostly form glowing green where it made contact with the crappy satin duvet. “Is Cartoon Network still around?"

“No idea, dude.” Jonathan turned on the TV and flipped to the Travel Channel. "Hey, Ghost Adventures."

"That stuff's all fake," Sock said, though his eyes were glued to the TV.

Jonathan looked at him and scoffed. "Of course. How silly of people to believe in ghosts and demons."

They watched the Travel Channel as the sun finished setting and the moon began to rise. Jonathan nearly dozed off a few times only to jerk awake at the commercials and their sudden increase in volume. Finally, he turned off the TV and looked at Sock with his eyebrows raised. “Let’s go.”

“Where to?” Sock hovered off the bed and watched as Jonathan grabbed a beer from his cooler and opened up the door.

“Where do you think?” Jonathan slipped out the door and politely held it open for Sock even though he didn’t need to. Slightly impeded by the beer in his hand, he swung his leg over the short metal railing and touched down lightly on the office roof. He sprawled out on the shingles and looked expectantly at Sock, who floated over to join him.

They sat in silence for a few moments until Jonathan popped the top on his beer and took a sip. Sock watched him. At 18, Jonathan was only a year older than Sock had been when he died, but sometimes he seemed so much older.

“Think we’ll see any shooting stars?” Sock asked.

“Maybe," Jonathan said pointedly, "if you watch the sky instead of staring at me.”

Sock was quiet for a moment. “I like the view up here.”

Jonathan looked at Sock sideways. “I do, too."

Just like that, the tension threatened to swallow them both, a physical ache that refused to be ignored.

Jonathan held out his beer can to Sock. "Wanna try it?"

“You know I can’t.”

“So pretend.”

“I don’t even know what it tastes like!”

“So take a sip and I’ll describe it.”

Sock leaned in and imagined he was pressing his lips to the rim of the can. “Okay--”

“Don’t talk, you’ll spill.” Jonathan thought for a moment. “So it’s bitter…" He trailed off, brow knitted in concentration.

Sock couldn’t help it. He started to laugh. “It’s a good thing you’re not an English major,” he squeaked out between gasps of mirth. “‘That was the best you could do?”

“Shut up,” Jonathan said, but he was smiling. “I was trying to--”

“I know,” Sock said fondly.

They went quiet for a moment, staring out at the horizon until Sock spoke again.

“You know, in elementary school they used to say that sharing drinks was an indirect kiss.”

“Yeah, kids said that at mine, too." Jonathan pressed his lips to the can's cold metal rim.

Above them, the stars twinkled, diamonds nestled in a backdrop of velvet.

\--

“I want to pick a song.”

Jonathan looked away from the road for a second, frowning in confusion. “You can’t.”

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Sock nodded, a big smile on his face. “Do exactly as I say.”

“Oh, boy.” Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Alright.”

“First, put your phone somewhere I can see the screen.”

“Okay.” Jonathan set his phone on the center console.

“Now pause your music.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Fiiiiiine.” Jonathan pressed the pause button on his steering wheel. The music stopped abruptly, leaving nothing but the noise of the air conditioner.

“Now start skipping forward until I tell you to stop.”

“That’s clever.”

“I’m a clever guy. Now shush.” Sock watched the screen intently. “Okay, stop!”

Jonathan pressed play and Bobby Womack’s rendition of “California Dreamin’” began to spill from the speakers. “I didn’t know you liked this song,” he said, blinking in surprise.

“I don’t!” Sock said cheerfully.

“Is this your subtle way of telling me to go to L.A.?”

Sock shrugged. “If that’s how you want to interpret it. Just seemed fitting, since we’re headed west and all.”

“Okay, let’s go to L.A.”

“Do you even know how to get there?”

“Uh, west and then south.”

“So no?”

“Eh, I’ll figure it out. Look, yucca trees.” Jonathan ducked his head and pointed forward. The road stretched out before them, curving gently through a forest of squat, thick-branched trees which stood against the vivid blue backdrop of the cloudless sky.

“Mm.” Sock poked the tip of his finger through Jonathan’s phone, smiling when his touch made the screen light up. “Do you have any Eurodance?”

“No, I absolutely do not.”

“You’re no fun.”

They drove on for a few more hours until traffic gradually began to increase. Billboards began to pop up along the road’s edge and train tracks stretched out in the distance.

“Looks like we finally made it back to civilization.” Jonathan yawned. “Great, ‘cause I’m starving.”

There was no reply. He glanced over at the passenger’s seat. It was empty.

He turned his music up and merged into the right lane, keeping his eye on the billboards.

He pulled off at an old timey ‘50s style diner and parked as far from the door as he could so he could walk a bit before sitting down again.

“Miss me?” Sock asked.

Jonathan jumped, nearly banging his head on his way out the driver's seat. “God!”

“Nope, she’s not my boss.” Sock winked. “You zoned out for a while so I figured I’d go make a status report.”

“You could have said something.”

“Like I said, you were zoned out. Highway hypnosis or something.”

“How long were you gone?” Jonathan started to walk for the restaurant doors.

Sock floated along next to him. “Oh, not that long. Probably. It’s not like there are clocks in Hell.”

“That makes sense, I guess.”

Jonathan held the door open for Sock, much to the confusion of the hostess who was waiting to greet him.

“Y’know, your lack of subtlety is the reason you kept getting called into the counselor’s office in high school,” Sock remarked once they were seated in the corner booth.”

“ _ Your _ lack of subtlety is the reason I haven’t checked myself out yet. It makes me want to stay alive out of pure spite.”

Sock stuck his tongue out and tugged at the earflaps on his hat the way he always did when he was feeling self-conscious. “I’ll wear you down soon.”

"3 more years ought to do the trick," Jonathan said, his gaze directed down at the menu in front of him. "You want anything?"

"I can't eat."

"Wanna pretend?"

Sock thought for a moment, and didn't answer, his uncharacteristic silence fading away into the faint rock 'n' roll emanating from the jukebox in the corner.

The waitress came back to take Jonathan's order, and Sock was too busy poking his ghostly fingers through the sugar packets to really pay attention.

"I keep asking my boss how to possess stuff," Sock said. He gave the little porcelain container a push and managed to scoot it back a few centimeters on the table.

"What, like a poltergeist?" Jonathan pushed the container back toward Sock.

"Yeah. I asked if he'd teach me how to do people too and he just kinda dodged the question." Sock poked his finger back into the sugar packets but this time, it just went through with a sickly green glow. Jonathan reached over and pulled the container back toward him.

"What does it feel like when you move things?"

"I dunno. I mean, it's been 3 years and I haven't gotten much better at it." Sock contemplated for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed. "What do you feel when you pass through me?"

Suddenly, Jonathan was looking everywhere but at Sock. His gaze passed over the 45s hanging from the ceiling, the black and white photos of celebrities on the walls. "It feels, uh. Kinda like-- Not  _ cold _ but kind of…" He sighed so deeply his shoulders shook and took a sip of his water. "It just feels like  _ you _ ."

Sock contemplated this for a moment. Then he pushed himself through the table and licked Jonathan's forehead. "What did  _ that _ feel like?"

Jonathan hid half his face in his shirt collar and grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "why do I even bother."

"Your forehead is all pink," Sock observed with unbridled glee.

"Must be allergic to demon spit." Jonathan rubbed the heel of his hand into his forehead, trying not to look at Sock. "You're such a freak."

"I'm  _ your  _ freak."

"Actually," Jonathan said thoughtfully, "I think I might be your freak. Since I got assigned to you. Or you got assigned to me?"

"We're each other's freaks," Sock reconciled.

Jonathan considered this. "You're my freak and I'm yours."

"Exactly."

The waitress reappeared at the edge of the table holding a tray and Sock tried to make Jonathan laugh by pulling stupid faces.

Jonathan kept his gaze fixed on the waitress, managing to look surprisingly normal despite the fact that his cheeks were getting redder and redder as Sock went on.

"What's funny?" Sock asked innocently.

"Your face." Jonathan pushed a large glass toward the center of the table. "Here."

Sock looked with confusion at the large straw now centimeters away from his nose."Huh?"

Jonathan rolled his eyes and color flared back into his cheeks. "It's a chocolate malt. I asked for two straws, since y'know, we're in a '50s diner and-- It's whatever, not like you can drink it anyway."

Sock smiled. "I'll pretend!” Suddenly he adopted an expression of exaggerated innocence that had Jonathan glaring at him with raised eyebrows.

“What?” Jonathan demanded, sensing that he was walking into a trap.

“Oh, I was just wondering if you were going to describe how this tastes like you did with the beer.”

Jonathan balled up a napkin and threw it at Sock. It sailed over Sock’s shoulder and landed in the neighboring booth.

“You’re lucky no one was sitting there,” Sock laughed.

“ _ You’re _ lucky I haven’t had you exorcised yet,” Jonathan grumbled. He leaned forward to take a sip of milkshake. Sock leaned in as well and pressed his lips against the straw, concentrating hard. The thin edge of the straw pressed into his lips. Jonathan was looking at him, his gray eyes hard with an unreadable expression.

The sensation vanished in an instant. The straw passed through Sock with a familiar green glow. He sighed.

Jonathan pulled back and swallowed. “I felt that,” he said, brushing his bangs out of his face.

“Huh?”

“When you sighed,” Jonathan explained. “I felt it. Just a little bit.” He leaned back in his seat, looking contemplative.

“You better eat before I steal all your fries,” Sock said.

Jonathan shook out of his reverie and leaned forward again. “You’re welcome to try.”

Sock did try, but as hard as he concentrated, his fingers just kept slipping through the plate.

When they were heading back to the car, Sock couldn’t help but glance at Jonathan’s hand where it hung by his side. He could reach out and pass right through Jonathan, too.

The thought made him feel strangely lonely. He slipped through the passenger side door without a word and didn’t even complain when Jonathan put on some weird acoustic indie music that Sock couldn't stand.

\--

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Jonathan said. It was a little after 2:00 in the morning and he was on his fifth Red Bull.

“You like the quiet,” Sock said, arguing for the sake of arguing.

“You don’t,” Jonathan said.

“Maybe I’m being courteous.”

“I don’t think I like it when you’re courteous.” Jonathan turned the music down and gave Sock a sideways look. “Seriously, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, um. You know.” Sock smiled thinly. The heart he didn’t have was pounding. The tongue he didn’t have was dry. He  _ knew _ Jonathan knew, even if neither of them had said it out loud before. "Us."

Jonathan’s eyes were fixed on the road. “I’m… sorry.”

Sock couldn’t help but giggle at this. Like it was  _ Jonathan's _ fault they were in this situation. “You’re sorry?”

“It’s a no-win situation.” Jonathan wasn’t laughing. “It doesn’t even matter how I feel."

"Jonathan,” Sock said. It was quiet for a moment. "Will you say it?"

Jonathan was silent.

Sock said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset too.”

“It’s okay.” Jonathan stifled a yawn behind his hand. “I probably need to sleep.”

_ “Please  _ don’t just pull over and sleep on the side of the road.” Sock fiddled absentmindedly with his hat. “It stresses me out.”

“Why?” Jonathan seemed genuinely surprised.

“It’s dangerous! We’re in the middle of nowhere on some random highway. What if somebody, like, robs you or hits your car or something?”

“I can’t believe you’re actually anxious about that.” Jonathan finished off his Red Bull and reached behind him for another, having moved the cooler to a place where he could get at it. “But fine, I’ll get a motel if it would make you feel better. Be nice to sleep in a bed anyway.”

“Good,” Sock said. “I should probably check back in, uh, downstairs at some point. But I’ll wait ‘til you’re settled.”

“Thanks.” Jonathan smiled at Sock.

Jonathan stared at the orange neon motel sign. He wanted to scream. Instead, he turned on the ancient clock radio and listened to the static.

Anyone who genuinely believed in the power of love was a dumb asshole.

\--

  
  


"I pissed you off," Sock said fretfully.

Jonathan stopped grinding his teeth so he could answer. "Not at all."

The summer sun beat down on the both of them. Cars roared by on the highway behind them. Before them stood silence, blue sky stretching to infinity, miles of saguaros. Isolation.

"Are we allowed to be out here?" Sock asked.

Jonathan shrugged. "If I get shot by a rancher for trespassing, I died while breaking the law. I might just go to Hell yet."

He ventured farther out into the desert. Birds flitted around in the cactuses, singing nervously.

"I wish you'd just tell me what's wrong," Sock said.

"You know what's wrong."

"And getting lost in the desert is going to fix it?"

"I don't know." Jonathan sat down on the hard-packed dirt.

Sock sat next to him. "I don't see why you have to get so gloomy about it."

"Uh, 'cause it sucks?" Jonathan scowled at him. "I'm not okay with this. I'm not okay with the idea of a whole lifetime in this weird, stupid limbo."

"So say it, Jonathan," Sock demanded.

"Why? What's the point?"

"Just tell me. Please. Tell me."

Jonathan looked at him, his gaze steely under the unrelenting sun. "Sock, I…" He closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't want to make it real."

"It's already real." Sock leaned in.

Jonathan leaned in to meet him.

They passed through each other, their eyes filling with a washed out green glow.

Jonathan sighed and started back for the car.

Sock waited before following him, hanging back to see if Jonathan would drive off without him.

The engine turned over. Sock stopped, but the car continued to idle on the shoulder. He phased into the passenger seat.

"What took you so long?" Jonathan asked.

"Thought you might want to be alone."

"Well, I don't." Jonathan scowled at the asphalt. "What do you want to do?"

"What?" Sock blinked.

"Today. It's not even noon and I've been driving like a maniac trying to get out of the Midwest. So what do you want to do?"

Sock looked out the window at the miles of orange desert stretching out in all directions. "Umm. How far to the ocean?"

Jonathan picked up his phone and began typing one-handed. "Like five hours."

"So, three, with the way you're driving." Sock glanced at the speedometer but couldn't see the needle from the passenger seat.

"I'm not going  _ that _ fast," Jonathan huffed, but he slowed down anyway.

"I just don't want--" Sock frowned. "Look, I don't want anything bad to happen to you, and you've been acting kind of weird."

"Don't talk like that," Jonathan said. "What happens if you get fired?"

"Umm. Presumably, I get  _ fired _ ."

"Well, I don't want anything bad to happen to  _ you.  _ So can we just, can we just pretend I never said anything? Let's just go back to normal."

"Back to that weird limbo you said you were sick of living in?"

"Yeah."

"Jonathan?"

"What?"

"Don't you think  _ this _ is a bad thing?"

"It's as good as we're going to get, I think."

The conversation ended. Jonathan had slammed the door on it.

Most people weren't forced to confront the concept of their own mortality every single day. Soldiers, maybe, and doctors. But that wasn't really the same.

When Jonathan's fate became entangled with Sock's, he had lost some of his freedom. After all, if he died before his time, he was damning Sock. If he committed suicide, he was damning himself.

What they were doing now wasn't really living. They couldn't even touch each other.

So Jonathan chose to gamble with fate, every single day, that he wouldn't get hit by a car or have an aneurysm or get stabbed.

But really, since the state of his soul was unknown, it wasn't his own fate he was betting with. It was Sock's.

\--

Sunlight sparkled on the blue water. Jonathan, haphazardly slathered in Banana Boat SPF 30, took a cautious step into it.

"You can't even swim," he said to Sock, who was floating right next to him.

"Maybe I just wanted to see you shirtless, hot stuff," Sock teased.

Jonathan blushed and took another step into the water. "You're the worst."

He waded into the water until he was up to his shoulders in it, jumping periodically to keep his head above the swells. "Can you go in?" he asked Sock.

Sock had hovered after him above the water level, his legs curled up. "I don't know. What do you think will happen if I accidentally turn semi-corporeal? Will I get all wet?"

"It's weird looking at you from this angle," Jonathan said.

Sock flipped himself upside-down. "How's this?"

Jonathan laughed and Sock's heart melted. Things had been tense after their conversation in the desert, but the beach seemed to have cheered Jonathan up.

Things were better this way. Sock didn't particularly  _ want _ to face torture for all eternity, but he could at least admit he deserved it. After all, between the two of them, Jonathan had committed 0 murders to Sock's 2.

Sock simply had to keep Jonathan alive for as long as possible, and they could spend his life together. When he died of natural causes and inevitably went to Heaven, Sock would take his punishment.

It was as simple as that.

"What's a yacht party?" Jonathan studied a colorful flier that had been stapled to a telephone pole.

"I dunno." Sock shrugged. "A party on a yacht? I don't think it's a trick."

"Hm. So you pay $50 to get drunk on a boat and listen to somebody named DJ Crystal Lite for 4 hours?"

"I guess?" Sock studied the flier. "Sounds like fun!"

"Do you wanna go?"

"Jonathan." Sock looked at him. "You'd really spend $50 to go be miserable on a boat for me?"

"Hey, I happen to like DJ, uh," Jonathan checked the flier, "Crystal Lite."

"Uh-huh." Sock was not convinced.

Jonathan pulled out his phone. "I'm gonna buy tickets."

"Just one," Sock reminded him.

"Yep," Jonathan said. "I know."

Jonathan was not having a good time. He had expected the drinks to be overpriced and pregamed accordingly, but the alcohol combined with the rocking of the boat made his head spin. He stumbled through the crowd and braced himself against the railing.

"Don't you want to dance?" Sock asked, emerging from the throng of writhing bodies.

"Nope," Jonathan said. The railing pressed painfully into his spine but he didn't move. The dull edges of the world slid in and out of his perception and the strobe lights throbbed sickeningly. "Oh, I really hate this."

"Is it too loud?" Sock asked. "Do you want to go hide in the bathroom?"

"No, I just." Jonathan closed his eyes. "I didn't think through the full repercussions of getting drunk on a boat."

"I bet they have coffee," Sock said. "I could go get-- Oh."

"No, no, that's a good idea." Jonathan staggered over to the bar.

"You gonna survive?" Sock asked.

Jonathan looked up at him from the plastic Adirondack chair he'd managed to score. "I want off this boat." He set his coffee aside and buried his head in his hands. "This was supposed to be fun." The lights from the pool reflected onto him, turning his whole body a ghostly blue.

"Have you ever been on a boat before?" Sock asked, not unsympathetic.

Jonathan thought for a moment. "No, I guess not. I was just… This seemed like the kind of thing you would like."

"You're right!" Sock said.

"Why don't you go dance?"

"I don't mind staying here with you," Sock said. "Are you okay, though?"

"I'm fine, I'm just dizzy."

Sock floated over to the railing and observed the city lights in the distance. "I bet you could swim for it."

"Me?" Jonathan laughed. "I get chest pains running for the bus." He finished off his coffee and sat back. "I'm sorry, Sock. I wanted this to be fun for you."

There was a small party of people a few feet away seated in Adirondack chairs of their own. Looking up at Jonathan, one of them started talking about bad acid and sloppy drunks.

Jonathan twitched but otherwise did not acknowledge them.

"Bet I could push one of them in," Sock said. Jonathan laughed, clearly not expecting him to do it. Never one to back down from a challenge, Sock floated over. One of the group members had their back to the pool. Sock focused hard and  _ shoved _ .

They fell in with a surprised cry that was quickly cut off by the water rushing into their mouth.

Sock turned triumphantly to Jonathan, who had gone red-faced trying not to laugh.

It was in that moment, with Sock glowing blue-green in the light of the pool and the party still raging on around him, that Jonathan decided.

It wasn't much of a confession, not when Sock already knew, but this wasn't the place.

He waited until they were back ashore. He waited until they were back in the motel room. He waited until the fuzz of the alcohol left his head, leaving only the bitter taste of coffee in its wake.

"Sock?" he said, turning a full circle. Sock was gone.

Jonathan went to bed.

\--

He slept fitfully and woke up just as the sun was rising. He was exhausted and more than a bit hungover. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but now that he was awake, he couldn't seem to get comfortable again.

He got dressed quickly and walked down to the beach. Few people were awake at this hour, mostly joggers and surfers and a few brave souls on rollerskates.

Jonathan sat down in the sand and watched the waves roll in while the sun rose behind him.

"Nice view," Sock commented.

Jonathan jumped. "Where have you been?"

"I got called in to give a status update, you know how it goes."

"Are you in trouble?" Jonathan asked, a stab of anxiety piercing his chest.

Sock laughed. "No, my boss just wanted to know things are going."

"What'd you tell him?"

"Same as usual, that you're a work in progress."

"Mm." Jonathan stared at the water. "Hey, Sock?"

"Yeah?"

"You know how I said I was sick of the weird, shitty limbo we're stuck in?"

"Jonathan--"

"Sock, I love you. I'll kill myself if it means I get to be with you, I'll do anything."

Sock looked at him, eyes aflame. "I want you to live."

"Even if--" 

"Jonathan, I don't care what it means for me. I want you to live. I love you."

They couldn't press their foreheads together, not really, but they tried it anyway.

"I'm sorry I couldn't say it sooner," Jonathan said.

Sock smiled at him. "You said it when it counted."

Behind them, the ocean roared, the sun rose, and a new day began.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it!
> 
> This was kind of an amalgamation of several road trips I've been on through the PNW, all the way through the length of California, and through Arizona. Ask me about how Ghost Adventures tried to kick me & my friends out of a state park. Seriously. Ask me.
> 
> Anyway, if you wanna talk, I'm OurLordApollo on Tumblr.
> 
> And finally, a shameless self-promotion in the form of a link to our best Welcome to Hell cosplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEUb8eeH184  
> (I'm the Jonathan)
> 
> Anyway, please feel free to point out any typos or errors you might stumble across. Thanks again for reading!


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